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1. Minor bug-fix – With the changeover to QuizBoxes and the removal of dollar values from the board, a stray dollar sign was left behind on the Super Quiz Box and Quiz Box Breaker screens. This has now been removed. (as suggested by Guy via email)

2. Clarification of the process for Changing Skins – Previously, when you wanted to change skins, you’d click on Skins in the menu at the top, and unless you knew, you’d click once on the skin you wanted, and you’d wait…. and nothing would happen, because to change skins, you actually have to DOUBLE-click on the skin name.  Now when you go to choose a new skin and you point to a skin, it tells you to DOUBLE-click it. (as suggested by Larry on the FAQ page)

3. Enlarging of the Category name when hovering over a QuizBox – Previously, you could only enlarge the name of the category by pointing at the name above the quiz boxes.  Now whenever you point to a still available quiz box, the Category Name will be enlarged at the top of the screen. (as suggested by Guy via email)

4. Introducing the DOUBLE-VALUE QuizBox – Normally, by prefacing any question in the QuizBoxes Question Editor with two asterisks (**), you turn that question into a SUPER Quiz Box, and the player/team that selected it gets exclusive access to the question and they can choose to risk any proportion of their current score in answering the question.  Now, you can also choose to preface any question with THREE asterisks (***), which will turn the question into a DOUBLE-VALUE QuizBox.  There is no risking involved, the question suddenly becomes worth double its normal value.  Again, you would play it as being exclusively for the player/team that selected it, but answering incorrectly or not answering at all can be twice as expensive a mistake.  Use sparingly!! (as suggested by Guy via email)

What are you waiting for? Go and get v4.1.0.0 from the Downloads page right away!  Yes, it’s still completely free.

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The “Connected Classroom” consists of an Interactive Whiteboard, Ultra Short-Throw Projector, a PC, Tandberg Video Conferencing unit with front and rear cameras and overhead microphones and a large flat-panel LCD TV. With this equipment already installed in 1,000 schools, an opportunity was presented to try something highly innovative - a game show competition between schools.

The high schoool tournament was advertised via one email sent to around to 120 schools that had their Connected Classroom installed and finalised. Within a few days, all 32 available slots had been snapped up and many other schools that missed out added their name to a standby list.  The tournament started two weeks later with two heats played each week.  Each heat comprised four schools pitted against each other. The presenter was at a fifth site and all were connected simultaneously via the video conference network. Stu’s Double Jeopardy was loaded onto the presenter’s PC and IWB and that image was shared using SMART’s Bridgit conferencing software, which is also part of the Connected Classrooms setup.  This allowed each of the remote four school sites to see the presenter’s screen on their own IWB.

Five stage 4 students (years 7 and 8) represented each school in the tournament. As questions were displayed, each school was able to buzz-in using my new jBuzzer add-on for Stu’s Double Jeopardy.  This lockout buzzer proved to be extremely effective and provided all schools with a fair mechanism for alerting the presenter to which school got in first.

Every heat played was very exciting and the feedback for each school has been overwhelmingly positive. Today we arrived at the pinnacle of the Tournament, the Grand Final where the top four schools competed for the right to be crowned Jeopardy State Champions!  Sydney Girls High, St Ives High, Riverside Girls High and Albury High performed admirably and the above video really shows the tension and excitement that was in the air across five different sites simultaneously.  I won’t spoil it for you by telling you who won – you’ll just have to watch the video – there really is nothing like it.

You can also relive all the happenings of this incredible tournament at the Jeopardy Tournament website, including photos and match reports from each event.

Just another example showing how Stu’s Double Jeopardy is making a difference.

DESPITE never having watched an episode of the game show Jeopardy, year 8 Colyton High School Trade School students won their first game, uniquely via video conferencing. As in the TV show, the student game consisted of a series of questions with money attached.

Questions were specified to test students on history, spelling skills, geography and all things Australian.

Facilitator Stuart Hasic, as well as teams from Murray, Randwick Girls and Bathurst high schools, could see each other on a plasma TV screen, using microphones and audio systems to communicate with each other.

The space bar on a keyboard was used as a buzzer and students watched a projector screen to see the questions, calling out to the microphone with their answers.

Colyton High School Trade School computer co-ordinator Paul Kerr said students love the interactive classes because they don’t have to travel but are still able to communicate with students interstate.

The Star asked if they missed face-to-face interaction and all students shook their heads. “It’s really fun to see other schools far away”, Isabella said. “This system is a lot better it’s a thrill but you feel safe in your own environment.”

See the full article here.  Follow the Tournament here.

Oh mon Dieu!!!! 

Alors I know that Richard Vandijk has already spoken about it in his blog, but I feel I have to write something about it as well as a French teacher. Richard spoke to me about Stu’s Jeopardy on Twitter. I thought it was really strange because he knows I already have some Jeopardy games, I use Powerpoint for that. But well, Richard is really clever ( he is Dutch) and if he recommended me a site I should have a look . Well, merci mon Dieu I did!!!! This version of Jeopardy has been made for me ( and for you as well it is why I have the urge of speaking about it!!!). it is free (Yes!! free, gratuit, gratos, donné, offert..), I love that word!!!, the only condition is that you have to send the creator a quiz that you created. Speaking about creation, it is so easy it is incredible!!! Usually when I use the Powerpoint template it takes a million years to create a game ( I grow a beard every time!!!) but with this one it is fast, easy, clear (don’t need to have a PHd to understand how it works or being a geek who has not seen day’s light in a decade) and if you make a mistake ( it never happens to me!!!) dead easy to fix it.

So I jump onto the programme and created a game for that afternoon for my year 13. I thought why not making a whole Jeopardy on conjugation revision?? So I did exactly that. A few minutes later my afternoon lesson was ready. The students came in and I told them what will happen during the lesson. They were not that excited as we play heaps of games and they already Jeopardy as I said earlier. We played. They used their brains. And at the end they asked if I created the game myself ( I wish I was smart enough!!!) and begged me ( yes I used Begged!!!) to create more quizzes. 16/17 year old teenagers thought the game was really good and when I asked them if I was doing more quizzes would they want to play they said “of course, it is cool!!! 

Voilà!! I just wanted to share my excitement about this game because it is a really good game.

Three of Flo’s quizzes can be found on the Quizzes page.

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